Lots of immediately’s younger adults would probably hint their first classes on logic and problem-solving again to the early days of Nick Jr.’s Blue’s Clues and, specifically, Steve Burns. If the sturdy emotional response to final 12 months’s twenty fifth anniversary advertising and marketing was any indication, many nonetheless really feel beholden to the previous host.
As we speak, in a marketing campaign from tech and logistics model Flock Freight, Burns helps business-minded adults reignite that childlike curiosity to resolve a unique thriller: simply how a lot is a “fuckload?” And is it larger or smaller than a “shitload?”
Flock first teased the brand new team-up with Burns and company Most Effort on Nov. 9 by way of its social media channels. Naturally, the group stored the glimpse clear.
The complete marketing campaign that follows places a surprisingly grownup spin on Burns’ discernible investigative abilities in adverts the place he visits a Flock warehouse and speaks to personnel about its transport strategies.
“How a lot precisely is a fuckload?” Burns asks with the identical harmless marvel that made him a family title many years in the past. From there, Flock workers clarify that prospects can rent the corporate to ship merchandise by the “fuckload,” which roughly equates to something greater than 40 toes, or by smaller 10 to 40-foot increments—also called a “shitload.”
However the marketing campaign’s objective isn’t simply to see a famend household TV star use spicy language. The adverts spotlight Flock Freight’s Shared Truckload mannequin, which permits prospects to lease solely the area strictly wanted and share freights with different, smaller hundreds—a function that Flock’s CMO, Orlando Baeza, notes as an financial and sustainability win.
“Benefiting the local weather is constructed into the enterprise,” Baeza informed Adweek. “The extra we pool freight, the extra metric tons of [carbon emissions] we’re taking out of the environment—to the tune of tens of hundreds.”
An outdated pal
Whereas the marketing campaign’s edgier tone aligns with Most Effort’s telltale ethos, Flock’s marketing campaign is a transparent departure from what audiences are used to seeing from Burns. However from a cultural and comedic standpoint—and after mulling over casting choices, which included “severe investigative journalists”—Baeza mentioned the Blue’s Clues icon was a singular and enjoyable match.
“As we began going via our choices, what got here to our thoughts was, ‘possibly it’s funnier if we truly lean into the parody aspect of this,’” he defined. “That’s the place Steve Burns got here up within the dialog. And he had that current viral video come out that sort of welcomed him again into the world.”
Added Most Effort’s president George Dewey, “Flock and Steve’s willingness to have enjoyable was actually inspiring. The freight business and the host of Blues Clues wouldn’t usually arrange the expectation for this sort of cheeky work, but right here we’re!”
For Burns, the marketing campaign offered an opportunity to attach with audiences in a brand new, enjoyable method.
“This was such a enjoyable expertise,” Burns informed Adweek. “I started working with really hilarious individuals and in addition take a deep dive into some of the urgent questions of our time.”
Extra importantly, Burns felt as if the adverts got here with a mission: “I felt we had been doing essential work—deeply exploring forgotten but essential models of measure.”
Delivering a brand new identification
The marketing campaign helps the model’s current identification refresh, which Beaza noticed as a chance to convey recent power to conversations regarding the provide chain. It’s additionally a technique to firmly establish Flock as a severe contender within the tech and logistics industries.
“It’s a little bit little bit of our popping out celebration, our ‘plant a flag’ second,” he shared. “Flock has been rising. Enterprise is extremely wholesome and we make plenty of sense for lots of people.”
These folks that Baeza speaks of are each shippers and carriers. With the Shared Truckload mannequin, Baeza sees a technique to profit shippers with cheaper choices and truck drivers with extra enterprise.
“What you’ll see is us persevering with to wrap our arms round [the truck driver] group and present how we recognize them and the work that they do, which is why one of many pillars for our firm is, ‘how can we put more cash of their pockets?’”
General, Beaza hopes that the identification refresh, which displays a modernized brand and colour palette, and extra culture-forward advertising and marketing will drive house the concept Flock is taking a completely totally different strategy to logistics.
“We’re constructing distinction,” he mentioned. “We’re constructing a model that stands by itself away from the competitors. Once we obtained into the rebrand, we needed to construct one thing that might mimic the texture and tradition of this firm, but in addition function an abstraction of what our product is.”
